The National Travel Survey (NTS) is a series of household surveys designed to provide regular, up-to-date data on personal travel and monitor changes in travel behaviour over time. The survey collects information on how, why, when and where people travel as well as factors affecting travel (e.g. car availability and driving licence holding). The first NTS was commissioned by the Ministry of Transport in 1965-1966. Further periodic surveys were carried out in 1972-1973, 1975-1976, 1978-1979 and 1985-1986 (data are available via the UK Data Service from 1972 onwards). Since July 1988 the NTS has been carried out as a continuous survey with field work being carried out in every month of the year, and an annual set sample of over 5,000 addresses. From 2002, the NTS sample was increased approximately threefold, to incorporate roughly 16,000 addresses per year. The original main objectives of the survey were: • to estimate the distribution of car ownership and the variation in car utilisation, and their dependence on demographic, socio-economic and other factors • to determine personal and household travel generation rates and the relationship between these rates and a wide range of demographic, socio-economic and other variables • to provide data affording an examination of the modal split for journeys of different types, to determine in what ways and under what circumstances public transport is competitive with the private sector • to provide information to fill gaps in national transport data derived from other sources; for example, taxi and car hire usage, ownership and usage of two-wheeled vehicles, and the distribution of expenditure between private and business travel The NTS is carried out primarily for the purposes of government. It is used to develop consistent sets of transport policies. Because it relates travel to travellers, it makes it possible to relate policies to people and to predict their impact. The survey provides detailed information on different types of travel: origin and destination of journey, distance, purpose and mode. The NTS records personal and socio-economic information to distinguish between different types of people, and the differences in the way they travel and how often they do so. Due to changes in the methodology of data collection, changes in travel behaviour and a reduction of data collected during 2020 and 2021, as a result of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, care should be taken when interpreting this data and comparing to other years, due to the small sample sizes. Please see the background documentation for further details of these changes.